


Goddammit (June 1985)

by Salmoneili



Series: HACF: Cam and Joe are just messing me up ... [3]
Category: Halt and Catch Fire
Genre: Everyone wants a piece of my pie, F/M, Finding my feet - at long last, I am the boss - what I say goes, Paranoia, Why won't Joe leave me alone?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-14 07:48:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28667259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Salmoneili/pseuds/Salmoneili
Summary: Cam has a lot to think about after seeing Joe at the hospital visiting Lev.They’ve both moved on, and she knows he's TROUBLE, but why does it feel like he’s plunged a knife into her heart when he tells her that his soon-to-be-wife is now the special person in his life?With his callous nature, Cam struggles to understand the motive behind his latest ploy in warning her NOT to accept the deal from Westgroup - the deal, he's worked so hard to broker.She thought she was free of his spidery hold, but fate has brought them together again and makes her reconcile an old issue from their past.Warning: angst and some swearing
Relationships: Cameron Howe/Joe MacMillan, Cameron Howe/Tom Rendon
Series: HACF: Cam and Joe are just messing me up ... [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1929043
Kudos: 4





	1. Fallout

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> 'HACF: Cam and Joe are just messing me up ...' Series Notes  
> This all started with a simple idea to expand on the night of COMDEX 90 from Cam’s POV and then flipping it for Joe’s.  
> I got more than a little carried away… and they turned into epics.  
> Then I wanted to explore their relationship at different times, reflecting on their development as they change and grow, their history and quirks.  
> All the parts try to follow the HACF timeline and events depicted on the show as closely as possible, with a bit of creative license about events only referred to.  
> Exceptions  
> \- plot deviation when Cam and Tom tried for a baby  
> \- post-Ryan's suicide, Joe's apartment is in San Jose not San Francisco  
> The series is pretty racy – mostly Mature only, maybe could even be Explicit in place (sex only). You have been warned.  
> Some parts have a sprinkling of Easter eggs for other Lee Pace characters from TV shows and movies.  
> Feeding my obsession.  
> These are the current list, and I’ll upload more parts as I finish them.  
> So far there’s ….  
> S1 - ‘Stuck’ (June 1983) and ‘Curious’ (Oct 1983) (in progress)  
> S2 – NEW as of Jan 2021! ‘Goddammit’ (June 1985)  
> S3 – ‘COMDEX 90 (Cam)’, ‘COMDEX 90 (Joe)’ Friday, Nov 16 1990  
> S4 – NEW as of Jan 2021! 'Segue' (Oct 1992) and ‘Phone Call’ (Mid-Oct 1993)  
> Post-canon – ‘Fate - Part 1' (March 1998), ‘Fate - Part 2' (March 1998), NEW as of Feb 2021! 'Snippets' (A collection of shorts post-Fate (Post-March 1998) in progress)  
> \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
> Lovely HACF fandom and readers - I would much appreciate some feedback and/or kudos.  
> \------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

\------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

June 13, 1985 - Cam split from Joe mid-Nov 1983 (after COMDEX) 1 year 7 months (19 months)

\- 1st relationship Cam n Joe - August – November 1983 (4 months + getting it on in June)

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ch.1

(8.44 a.m., Thursday, June 13th, 1985)

Cam kissed Tom back, trying to show him the same affection he was showing her, grinning like a plastic doll with its fake smile and fake love.

She probably did love him, but she knew his feelings ran much deeper than hers.

She wanted to feel more for him, and she told herself to just ‘fake it ‘til you make it.’

Would it be enough though?

She still felt too damaged, too broken for it to be anything more than what it was right now.

Goddammit, was she becoming like ... him?

The specter of her ex still loomed large, like he did in real life.

No, don’t even think about it, she cautioned herself.

Maybe with the passing of time, she’d be able to love Tom back as he deserved. They’d only been together just over a month anyhow, but he was a great guy, a fellow coder and a fellow gamer. They certainly had way more in common in that respect.

It wasn’t just with the new love in her life, she’d never been great at letting her feelings out, it was an old habit, self-protection really and she bottled everything up.

Every once in a while, there’d be a release, an explosion, like the opening of a dropped soda bottle.

She knew that was why she had a reputation of being spiky and difficult.

She also knew that if she expressed herself, articulated the issues she had better, there wouldn’t be the highs and lows that constantly seemed to rule her life.

But knowing something and doing something about it, were two very different things.

She was a month shy of her 24th birthday, so she could still claim it was the naivety of youth.

She waited for him to get out of the car and watched him as he headed back to the house-cum-office.

His slow steps and slumped shoulders showed his defeat.

Tom’d wanted to stay with her, discuss it, but she’d insisted she needed to go and think - alone.

She'd vowed that she'd never give someone else power over her again, as she’d done so readily with … the other asshole.

The look Tom gave her was resigned and angry. The novelty of a female boss-cum-girlfriend wouldn't last long.

But she could feel his worry exuding from every pore and it pinched his face.

She tried, unsuccessfully to allay it.

He didn't believe her that it was all about Mutiny and not, _not_ at all about ... him, her ex.

Goddamn men!

Why couldn’t everything be as black and white and straightforward as a computer program?

You entered a command and it either worked or it didn’t.

People were too complicated.

Too messy.

She wished she hadn’t told Tom, that Joe'd been at the hospital.

She hadn't thought about his feelings, she’d just been shell-shocked when she'd seen Joe there, the last place she'd expected him, at Lev’s bedside and then that he’d told her to reject the deal. The deal he’d worked so hard to force on them, on her.

She’d had to say it out loud, just to hear it again, reaffirming that it’d actually happened, and that it wasn’t solely a figment of her imagination.

Tom could’ve been anyone from Mutiny really, Bos, Donna, Yoyo ... the neighborhood mutt that occasionally came round for scraps and back scratches.

She shook her head, knowing that anyone else would’ve been better. Better than telling her current boyfriend that she’d just spoken to her previous one.

Especially, as that slime ball was at the heart of all the problems that were currently dividing her fledgling company.

She didn’t mean to torture Tom.

Although, not telling him would’ve felt worst, she reasoned.

She wasn’t duplicitous by nature, only when pushed into a corner and she had no other recourse.

Which was how she’d feel in eight days time when she’d commit a devastating piece of industrial sabotage against Westgroup, taking out the big multinational and with it, what was left of Joe's reputation and his marriage too.

Revenge would be so sweet, but that was the future and not even in her mind then. Westgroup, or rather Jacob Wheeler, hadn't showed his true colors yet.

As Cam drove away, she wondered if Tom’s insecurity was rooted in the knowledge that she’d felt more for her ex than she currently did for him.

They’d never actually spoken about her previous relationship, Cam couldn't. Although, Tom knew that she’d been badly hurt.

The coders were worse than fishwives for gossip, so she was sure he knew all of the gory details.

But regardless of what he'd done to her, Joe MacMillan, was a magnet for hate.

His modus operandi was to steamroller over everything and everyone to get what he wanted. He promised the world with seductive, silky words and while they were distracted, he’d simultaneously slit their throat, grinning all the while.

Or rip your heart out, she thought bitterly.

Someone had even coined the phrase the 'MacMillan Effect’ when they worked together at Cardiff, and it stood for his knack of totally upending everything, or, and she smiled manically, a total cluster-fuck of a disaster.

She wondered how many people had lost their jobs as well as everything else becasse of him.

Many of the coders who now worked for her had experienced Joe'd ways first-hand before Cam’d easily convinced them to ‘mutiny’ against him, leave Cardiff and come to her.

Now, he was behind another too-good-to-be-true offer, and she feared he was exacting his revenge on her.

Joe always played the long-game, and there was no way she was going to trust him.

She couldn’t.

What the coders, and Tom, didn’t know was that Joe had been the first person she’d ever loved, _truly loved._

No-one else had ever come close.

It’d been her first real relationship. She'd even told him she loved him.

She'd never said those words to anyone before, not that he'd ever said them back to her.

Angry at being so easily suckered, she'd vowed she would never say them again so freely.

Their relationship had burned brightly for a just short time, less than four months, six if she counted the multiple one-night stands they’d enjoyed since their first day of meeting, before she'd succumbed to his inevitable charm.

It’d been like a firework display, beautiful, magical but leaving a just a smoke trail against a cold, black endless void.

Leave 'em wanting more, that was Joe.

He’d dazzled her, showed her the moon and the stars and made her believe they were hers for the taking.

She'd thought they had a future together, that he wanted it too.

The pain of it ending, his betrayal, had cut deeper than she’d ever felt before.

Reopening and enlarging the long-buried wound of her father’s sudden death when she was just a kid.

She closed herself down for self-protection.

She was wary of opening her heart again, even for someone as amiable as Tom.

Incapable of it rather, as she’d walled it up in a tower in a deep dark forest like Rapunzel.

The shutting down allowed her to focus on what she was good at; coding and one thing she could thank Joe for was that he’d given her the confidence to start out on her own by inadvertently igniting her spark, and she was on fire now.

The hate she felt for him was like a living thing and it raged inside of her.

For a time, it devoured any other emotions that’d dared to raise their heads.

It prowled and stalked, leaping gleefully on any supposed misdemeanor or slight against her.

She realised that she’d always been angry.

She had many reasons; her parents deserting her, one by dying and the other not caring, _still_ didn't care.

The other kids at school never accepting her and her inability to be anything other than what she was, a square peg in a round hole, in a round world.

Ironically, she and Joe had started out the same, terrible childhood traumas, socially-awkward, bullied, but with big dreams.

Only he could shape-shift and now she didn’t know if what she’d seen beneath his mask was real or just another guise.

Had it all been a lie too?

She wanted to believe he was empty, there really was nothing there as it made him easier to hate.

The anger she’d felt at _herself_ , after giving herself to him, of being some stupid dreamy girl, dreaming of a life with him, was at another level, it blazed fiercely, almost consuming her.

Until she channeled it and then it fueled her.

It gave her power.

It gave her the strength to show him what he’d lost by betraying her.

Betraying what they'd had.

Would she have had the courage to have started a company if he hadn’t?

Maybe.

Who knew?

Goddamn him.

She put her foot down as she reached the freeway, blinking back the tears and focusing on the road.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


	2. Breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cam relives meeting Joe in the hospital, trying to work out his angle this time, and she realises the shocking truth about events long buried.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ch. 2

8.57 a.m., Thursday, June 13th, 1985

She cranked the radio up, blasting the shitty song up loud, trying to drown out her thoughts.

She’d tried finding a better station with halfway decent songs, but her ariel was still bust so she had to make do.

Her stomach growled, they’d stayed at the hospital all night and had run out of change for the vending machine.

It wasn’t as if it’d had anything that wasn’t junk anyway, and not even any of the junk she liked.

She’d just been mindlessly driving and had turned off the freeway looking for somewhere to eat. She wasn’t really sure where she was, it seemed to be all houses.

‘C’mon, what people here don’t eat?’ she was talking to herself, Jesus, was that what she was reduced to now?

After a couple more turns, she suddenly found herself on a street with some stores on one side and dust-bound small park on the other. After quickly scanning for a diner she decided to ask as there were a few people on the sidewalk, and she pulled over and wound her window down.

‘Uh, excuse me,’ her voice was weak from not talking, and the old guy kept on walking, ‘Hey! Excuse me!’ louder, stronger, this time.

He turned, ‘Yeugh?’ gruffly uttered and with frowned features.

Taken aback, she went for politeness, ‘Uh, sir, do you know if there's a diner near here? ... Umm, I don’t know this area.’ She finished lamely but gave him her most dazzling smile.

He seemed to soften and gave her a tired smile back, before jabbing a bent finger further along.

‘Thank you!’ she called, but he’d already turned and was on his way.

She decided to park up and walk to where he’d indicated.

She hoped they did breakfast burritos and coffee, she needed coffee.

The place was pretty dingy, populated by a couple of other loners and an overly made up waitress with too bright orange hair, but she smiled happily at Cam.

It reminded her of where she’d gone to when she was still in college, a whole lifetime ago.

Before all of this, before Cardiff, before him.

When all of it had just been a dream.

The reality was not how she’d pictured it.

She just wanted to create; she didn’t want all of these … problems.

They drained away her imagination, her lifeblood.

Everything else was a distraction now, the network, the servers, the dial-up speed, the user numbers, the power company, Goddamn Community, on and on it went. And least she forget, being responsible for everyone.

It’d taken all the fun out of it.

She’d never wanted to be the boss, but Donna had been right, it hadn’t been working the way it’d been running and now they were even bigger and still growing.

It had been more exciting before; but it was still her baby, even if it was a demanding, demented toddler now.

It was hers. It was special.

She loved it, fiercely, and would do anything to protect it.

But now? Now she was just confused.

The Goddamn MacMillan Effect.

She forced herself to focus on the menu after she’d ordered coffee as she sat at a table facing the park.

Damn, no burritos.

She settled on scrambled eggs, bacon and toast, then she’d see how she felt after that, maybe she would splurge and have some blueberry pancakes too before going back into the fray.

She took a gulp of coffee and hurriedly spat it back as it was still far too hot.

It burned the tip of her tongue.

Goddammit!

She held it in her fingers, trying to soothe it.

If only that was the only thing she had to worry about.

Why was Goddamn Joe back in her life?

She knew why, he was a … a parasite, leeching off her again. Intent on sucking her completely dry this time.

She’d closed that chapter of her life 18-months ago on that very same porch that he’d strolled across again, bold as brass, what just last week?

And now there was the chaos that always followed in his wake. Things hadn't been perfect, but now ...? She sighed again then said quietly, 'A cluster-fuck.'

In her mind’s eye, she conjured up his face from that cold night, up close, his frozen expression of shock, eyes dilated, mouth open at her harsh words. She'd been an ice queen.

She’d already set in action her plan for payback, but he wouldn’t know that until the next day when he went in and most of the coders had left Cardiff.

Him coming to see her, to beg her to take him back, well, it’d just been the icing on the cake.

She’d delighted in breaking the arrogant son of a bitch.

It’d kept her warm and snug for many a long, lonely night. It was how she’d finally got one over on him and got over him.

Joe MacMillan was nothing to her any more.

Then Donna, or Gordon, had let him back in, giving him an inch and he'd taken the proverbial mile.

She was still incandescent with rage at the pair.

She’d known what he was going to do, right from the start.

He’d wanted revenge, and he had Mutiny, had her, right in his taloned grasp.

He was going to crush it and her along with it.

She thought naively that the coders would be on her side, that they’d remember what he’d done.

But it seemed money was a great motivator, a soothing balm of forgetfulness, and there were a few new faces who hadn’t even heard of the evil sorcerer, Joe fucking MacMillan.

Sorcerer? Android sorcerer, more like.

Christ, she had to stop working on Parallax, her brain was warping.

But perhaps the big baddie from their flagship game was actually based on him ... Fuck, he was everywhere!

But she found she couldn’t blame them; it wasn’t as if she’d been able to regularly make their pay checks. Would she have been so loyal and stayed on and worked for free on someone else’s dream?

She didn't think so.

Dammit.

But that Donna and Bos were so … gullible?

They should’ve had her back, they knew him and his tricks.

She’d seen their faces as he’d used his hypnotic voice, their eyes had glazed over.

He had them too.

He didn’t even need to say any more, they were his puppets, both imploring her to take a minute, to consider the sell-out offer.

To give up her first born for his spun promise of gold.

Was he Rumpelstiltskin now?

He’d almost had her too, looking into his too pretty eyes and his fucking beautiful, sexy mouth that she knew could give so much pleasure.

But she’d felt the crack in her heart widen and ice poured down her spine.

She’d forced herself to remember, she'd been here before.

 _She_ was what he wanted.

She was the future, and he was the past.

He had nothing she needed.

She was stronger now.

She knew she had to act swiftly to break his spell.

It’d worked for a while, until the coders’d got curious as to what they’d turned down.

Then they’d turned on her, feeling that she’d duped them.

Joe had sowed his poisonous magic beans and she’d become the enemy.

Just for the lure of a shiny coin or two.

The vote had been interrupted by the news that Lev'd been beaten up, and somehow the shock of it had made her reconsider.

So, she relented and decided to sign, it wasn’t just her life in the balance. Mutiny was a team, her fucked up new family.

Besides, he hadn’t ripped any of their hearts out, just hers.

There was a contract.

He’d _said_ he’d get out of the way this time.

Maybe he would.

Her breakfast appeared, God, she was ravenous.

She tore into it, not thinking, just devouring.

Almost finished, belly full, but it curdled inside with the sudden realization that it’d been what he’d made her when she’d stayed over at his during a storm once.

That fun-filled weekend of debauchery, just before everything went to shit. Her doing, not his, for once, as Bos had asked her to hack into Cardiff’s bank account so they could carry on funding the Giant and get it to COMDEX.

Jesus, that was ancient history! What the hell was wrong with her?

Angrily pushing away their past and her plate, reminding herself that _he’d_ been the one, ultimately, to fuck it all up, not her.

She thought about their conversation outside Lev’s room.

She put it under a microscope, needing to know what it meant. She needed to work out what his Goddamn angle was.

What upset her most had been her reactions, how shocked she’d been to see him sat at Lev’s bedside, although he seemed equally startled seeing her, despite him saying he’d gone there to find her.

But why had she stolen a furtive glance at Tom’s sleeping form?

Why didn’t she want him to see her talking to Joe?

OK, so think it through, Tom would be jealous, she’d have to talk to him about what’d happened with Joe, how it’d ended, which meant talking about things she didn’t want to talk about with him or with anyone.

No good could come out of raking over the past.

She felt the acid-burnt black lump start to rise in her at the just thought of it.

She shoved it back down into the bottomless pit with all the others she kept. But this one, this one was particularly nasty and never missed an opportunity, however small, to rise up to the surface and taunt her.

She just didn’t want to have that conversation, period.

Anyway, she hated Joe, it wasn’t as if she wanted him back.

Did she _love_ Tom?

Maybe, she felt conflicted, there was a shadow over her heart since Joe had returned.

She … _liked_ Tom.

A lot.

He was good for her.

He was fun.

He was easy.

Joe was definitely not easy.

But he could be fun, he had been … _very_ _fun_ , some treacherous inner voice offered.

Shut up.

Instinctively, she knew any fight with Tom about Joe wouldn’t end well.

OK, enough, she needed to think, so how had it gone down earlier?

\---Joe’d seemed genuinely upset about Lev.---

\---She’d thought that’d been weird, it wasn’t if he’d even bothered to learn any of their names at Cardiff.---

\---However, once he started talking, she understood, it’d reminded him of his past.---

She imagined that hospitals were another trigger, after all the time he’d spent in them.

\---He didn’t look at her, kept his eyes trained on Lev’s unmoving form as he spoke, his voice had lost its previous self-assuredness, she thought he seemed withdrawn, tired maybe?

No, she realised, he was defeated.---

When had _the_ Joe MacMillan ever been defeated?

But she’d seen him like that before, she probably was one of the few people who ever had.

So low and full of emotions that she thought he’d break. But he was too strong for that.

\---As she watched him, she knew he’d taken off the mask and she blinked, suddenly there he was again, her Joe, the one she’d been in love with. That lost little boy, so scarred from life’s knocks that he carried them with him as a permanent reminder how tough it was. It must help him to remember _he_ was tougher. _He_ could do anything, defeat death even.---

Elbows on the table, her hands cupped her face as she rubbed her eyes, exhaling forcefully.

Fucking hell.

She thought she’d gotten off this fucking roller coaster, this fucked-up train wreck. They both were at different stations, on opposite tracks now, he'd made that clear at least.

\---She listened with rapture as he spoke, she could clearly see him as a gangly sixth grader, all arms and legs, carrying all his books running in the school corridors, hunted and haunted.---

\---‘… I guess it made my legs stronger, my back stronger. It’s dangerous to try and really connect with someone ...’---

That fucking voice of his, it wasn’t the same that’d got to Donna, no the asshole knew that wouldn’t work on her.

But he’d been talking about them, hadn’t he?

Was he still hurting too?

Was that why he hadn't looked at her?

No.

No, don’t even go there.

To go there would mean going back down the rabbit warren.

\---‘… It’s so special when you find a person you can be yourself with.’---

\---Her heart'd skipped a beat, what was he saying?---

\---Ridiculously, a delicate bubble of hope’d risen up from inside of her.---

\---‘You were that,’ She’d held her breath, waiting for what he'd say next, ‘Sara is.’---

\---The bubble burst.---

\---She’d swallowed and couldn’t look at him.---

\---She blinked to stop the tears that were prickling the back of her eyes from falling.---

How did he get her like this? Again, after everything.

He’d just crushed her … _again_. God-damn-it!

She hated herself.

She was so _weak_.

She was pissed at herself, at him, at every-fucking-one.

Stop, Cam.

Save it, use the anger to help you for once, be smart, she pushed it back down.

Focus.

She forced herself to relax and tried to view things from a less emotional place.

It was a challenge, but she had to for Mutiny.

\---Then, just as she’d wanted to run, to be anywhere but there, he turned and looked at her.---

\---Fixing her in place, doing the same to her that he had to Donna and Bos.---

\---She was a rabbit caught out in the open, carelessly playing while the big bad wolf bore down on her.---

\---Helpless to do anything.---

\---Except, the killing blow never came.---

\---Just when she’d steeled herself for the sharp blood-stained teeth in his ravenous maw to end her pathetic life, he’d quietly said, ‘Don’t sell.’---

\---She’d been too shocked, getting a completely different bait-and-switch to the one she’d been expecting.---

\---She listened in stunned silence as he elaborated fully, '… He’ll ruin it. He won’t mean to, but he will. You’ll make a ton of money, the company will be a juggernaut, but your vision will be corrupted and lost. He’ll start by pulling the plug on games.’---

His voice'd been just above a whisper, it was how they'd used to talk after sex, open and ... honest.

Was he fooling her again or telling the truth?

He was so skilled; she couldn’t tell if it was just a story to trick her.

She’d been able to read him once. Why not now?

Because she wanted it to be true, she realised.

But it was, wasn't it?

OK, OK, think. What would he gain if she didn't sell?

Damn, it hurt her head to keep second guessing him like this.

Whatever his angle was, she'd be free of him at least.

\---When she’d finally found her voice, she’d asked him what this was, stating the obvious that he’d fought so hard for her to sign and now ... was he playing with her, tormenting her?---

\---Anguished, too strung out after the last few days, she pleaded with him, she’d needed to know.---

\---‘It’s not my business.’ simply stated.---

And there it was, finally, the truth.

Why he’d looked so … wrung out.

He wasn’t the one pulling the strings, he wasn’t the puppet master, as much as he wanted to be, it'd just been a pretence.

\---‘… I’m not going to bully you into this. It’s your company. You should decide what happens.’---

He was right, Goddammit, yes, she should decide, she was the boss. _Not Donna, not Bos, not Tom_ and certainly _not the coders_.

\---Still he tumbled on, ‘… Maybe you’ll make it, maybe you won’t. But you live and die by who you really are.’---

He knew her, he knew that she was never going to be a company lackey, she had too many rough edges to ever fit into that round hole.

If Mutiny failed, she’d be … devastated, but she had the strength in her to get up again and carry on, didn’t she?

She did.

Her heroine, Ada Lovelace had overcome adversity, hadn’t she?

But she had money and privilege, what do you have? her ubiquitous voice added unhelpfully.

Fuck off.

She would carry on, that was just what she, and him too, did.

She returned her thoughts back to earlier that morning, what had she said back to him?

Ah yes … back to his angle.

\---‘And where do you fit into all of this?’---

\---‘I don’t. I’m removing myself from the equation.’---

\---She was too astonished to do anything but watch his departing back.---

Why had she felt so torn? Both elevated and deflated.

It made no sense.

Previously, they’d talked about working together, going to California together, she wondered if it’d been all just bullshit.

At the time, she’d looked at everything through rose-tinted lenses.

Maybe it really was about ... Sara, his ... fiancée ... A rush of pure jealousy came up from inside, threatening to bring her breakfast up with it.

What the hell? No, no, no. It was SO much better he was out of her life, not even a name on page whatever of a contract. He'd just change everything, that's what he always did, upset the frigging apple cart.

The waitress came with a top-up and to remove her plate, the remainder now cold.

Pancakes?

They reminded her of Joe too.

Jesus, bitch, you had pancakes with your dad too, you’d starve if you carry on like this.

Fuck it.

She ordered them.

She needed the sugar as a pick-me-up.

She thought about their pre-COMDEX talks, when they’d been on the same side.

As much as it pained her to, she had to look at it all again.

It was the betrayal what she couldn’t take. She’d expected him to come to her defence, he was her boyfriend after all, they loved each other. That meant he was supposed to be on her side. If he wasn’t, then who the hell was?

But just last week, Bos had said that purely from a business standpoint, taking out her OS has been the right thing to do. That Joe wasn’t a bad businessman, and if _he_ could still say that after everything, she needed to re-examine what happened back then too.

It hadn’t been Joe who’d done the actual deed, but Gordon, who’d always resented it.

Joe just hadn’t stopped him.

Had she been wrong? Acted too hasty, as always?

The thought shocked her.

Had she just been too close to it? Too involved emotionally?

The OS was her creation, she’d spent hours on it, making it right.

She'd _loved_ it.

It’d been her unborn child, and its potential and brilliance unrealised.

They'd aborted it without her consent. Murdered it without a second thought.

That was what had cut her the most.

Joe had just been an easy target of her wrath.

Betrayal from a loved one pushed her buttons; it was what she felt her mom had done to her too.

But he'd just been trying to keep the Giant afloat, by any means possible, as she had by breaking the law. He'd forgiven her for that ... Pure shock shot through her at the thought.

_Fuck!_

She knew that was another truth and he hadn’t actually deserved what she’d said, or how she'd treated him.

Goddammit.

Tears sprang into her eyes.

His pained face swam up again and she felt … guilt for the first time.

_Goddammit!_

It wasn’t as if he’d specifically chosen Mutiny for the timesharing idea, that’d been Gordon ... again.

Goddammit, was Gordon trying to sabotage her? Or Donna? Were they working together to overthrow her?

Did she have enemies on all sides?

Stop it, stop it, _stop it_. Stop being crazy.

It wasn't that, it was just Gordon's misplaced judgement, trying to be helpful and stuffing up ... again. He was great at that.

This was what Joe did best, she reasoned, sowing seeds of doubt, causing in-fighting while he sat back and watched the ensuing battle, waiting to pounce for when his enemy was at their weakest.

Enough, stop giving him the rope to hang yourself with, he’s not that powerful, she angrily chided.

Jesus!

She had to stop being paranoid, Donna had her back, they were friends.

She smiled with the secure knowledge of it.

But about Westgroup and this deal, she was sure that Joe was at least telling her the truth.

She couldn’t actually recall, except for his bullshit scar stories, any time he’d actually looked her in the eye and lied to her. He'd not told her the whole truth on occasions, but not actually lied to her, she corrected.

There was one piece of advice she would take from him, she decided, Mutiny was _her_ company and she’d be damned if she let anyone else, him, Tom, Jacob Wheeler, John Bosworth, Gordon or Donna Clark decide what was going to happen to it.

They wanted her to be the boss, so she'd be the boss and take charge, once and for all.

No more games, well, yes, games, but not those games, she reasoned.

Her pancakes came and she immediately smothered them in the small jug of maple syrup, tipping it up and waiting to get out every last drop. It'd give her the strength to do what she was going to do.

‘Do you want some more of that, honey?’ asked the waitress.

She looked up and smiled, feeling clearer for the first time in days, ‘Yes, please.’

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finished! My first 'short story' for the series!
> 
> Please leave a comment if you've enjoyed or even some pointers.
> 
> Thanks for the encouragement from SimplyRali and Ione (not into this fandom but a real life writing friend, check out her work, I've been enjoying her awesome Lokane fics)


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